Alternative Preferences

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerry E. Back
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Ambiguity Aversion ◽  
Marginal Utility ◽  
Knightian Uncertainty ◽  
Stochastic Discount Factor ◽  
Ellsberg Paradox ◽  
First Order ◽  
Weighted Utility ◽  
Disappointment Aversion ◽  
Rank Dependent Utility

The Allais and Ellsberg paradoxes are presented. Various generalizations of expected utility motivated by these and other paradoxes are discussed, including betweenness preferences, rank‐dependent preferences, multiple prior max‐min preferences, and prospect theory. For betweenness preferences, which include weighted utility and disappointment aversion, an investor’s marginal utility is proportional to a stochastic discount factor. Disappointment averse utility and rank‐dependent utility have first‐order risk aversion. Multiple prior max‐min utility is one way to accomodate the Ellsberg paradox (ambiguity aversion or Knightian uncertainty). The dynamic consistency of updating multiple priors is discussed.

If It Is Surely Better, Do It More? Implications for Preferences Under Ambiguity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soheil Ghili ◽  
Peter Klibanoff
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Ambiguity Aversion ◽  
Upper Bounds ◽  
Maxmin Expected Utility ◽  
Weak Dominance ◽  
Choice Under Uncertainty ◽  
Tight Connection ◽  
Sales Agent ◽  
Utility Preferences ◽  
Sensitive Behavior

Consider a canonical problem in choice under uncertainty: choosing from a convex feasible set consisting of all (Anscombe–Aumann) mixtures of two acts f and g, [Formula: see text]. We propose a preference condition, monotonicity in optimal mixtures, which says that surely improving the act f (in the sense of weak dominance) makes the optimal weight(s) on f weakly higher. We use a stylized model of a sales agent reacting to incentives to illustrate the tight connection between monotonicity in optimal mixtures and a monotone comparative static of interest in applications. We then explore more generally the relation between this condition and preferences exhibiting ambiguity-sensitive behavior as in the classic Ellsberg paradoxes. We find that monotonicity in optimal mixtures and ambiguity aversion (even only local to an event) are incompatible for a large and popular class of ambiguity-sensitive preferences (the c-linearly biseparable class. This implies, for example, that maxmin expected utility preferences are consistent with monotonicity in optimal mixtures if and only if they are subjective expected utility preferences. This incompatibility is not between monotonicity in optimal mixtures and ambiguity aversion per se. For example, we show that smooth ambiguity preferences can satisfy both properties as long as they are not too ambiguity averse. Our most general result, applying to an extremely broad universe of preferences, shows a sense in which monotonicity in optimal mixtures places upper bounds on the intensity of ambiguity-averse behavior. This paper was accepted by Manel Baucells, decision analysis.

scholarly journals Testing Ambiguity Models through the Measurement of Probabilities for Gains and Losses

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélien Baillon ◽  
Han Bleichrodt
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Ambiguity Aversion ◽  
Choquet Expected Utility ◽  
Maxmin Expected Utility ◽  
Stock Indices ◽  
Descriptive Validity ◽  
Utility Models ◽  
Ambiguity Attitudes ◽  
Gains And Losses ◽  
Fourfold Pattern

This paper reports on two experiments that test the descriptive validity of ambiguity models using a natural source of uncertainty (the evolution of stock indices) and both gains and losses. We observed violations of probabilistic sophistication, violations that imply a fourfold pattern of ambiguity attitudes: ambiguity aversion for likely gains and unlikely losses and ambiguity seeking for unlikely gains and likely losses. Our data are most consistent with prospect theory and, to a lesser extent, α-maxmin expected utility and Choquet expected utility. Models with uniform ambiguity attitudes are inconsistent with most of the observed behavioral patterns. (JEL D81, D83, G11, G12, G14)

scholarly journals The Nature of Risk Preferences: Evidence from Insurance Choices

2013 ◽  
Vol 103 (6) ◽  
pp. 2499-2529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Levon Barseghyan ◽  
Francesca Molinari ◽  
Ted O'Donoghue ◽  
Joshua C Teitelbaum
Keyword(s):  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Marginal Utility ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
Risky Choice ◽  
Probability Weighting ◽  
Disappointment Aversion ◽  
Diminishing Marginal Utility ◽  
Standard Risk ◽  
Small Probabilities

We use data on insurance deductible choices to estimate a structural model of risky choice that incorporates “standard” risk aversion (diminishing marginal utility for wealth) and probability distortions. We find that probability distortions—characterized by substantial overweighting of small probabilities and only mild insensitivity to probability changes—play an important role in explaining the aversion to risk manifested in deductible choices. This finding is robust to allowing for observed and unobserved heterogeneity in preferences. We demonstrate that neither Kőszegi-Rabin loss aversion alone nor Gul disappointment aversion alone can explain our estimated probability distortions, signifying a key role for probability weighting. (JEL D14, D81, G22)

scholarly journals An explicit representation for disappointment aversion and other betweenness preferences

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1509-1546
Author(s):  
Simone Cerreia-Vioglio ◽  
David Dillenberger ◽  
Pietro Ortoleva
Keyword(s):  
Functional Equation ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
General Result ◽  
Explicit Representation ◽  
Implicit Representation ◽  
Utility Representation ◽  
Disappointment Aversion

One of the most well known models of non‐expected utility is Gul's (1991) model of disappointment aversion. This model, however, is defined implicitly, as the solution to a functional equation; its explicit utility representation is unknown, which may limit its applicability. We show that an explicit representation can be easily constructed, using solely the components of the implicit representation. We also provide a more general result: an explicit representation for preferences in the betweenness class that also satisfy negative certainty independence (Dillenberger 2010) or its counterpart. We show how our approach gives a simple way to identify the parameters of the representation behaviorally and to study the consequences of disappointment aversion in a variety of applications.

scholarly journals Revealed Preferences over Risk and Uncertainty

2020 ◽  
Vol 110 (6) ◽  
pp. 1782-1820 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Polisson ◽  
John K.-H. Quah ◽  
Ludovic Renou
Keyword(s):  
Portfolio Choice ◽  
Efficiency Index ◽  
Revealed Preferences ◽  
Choice Data ◽  
Risk And Uncertainty ◽  
Infinite Domains ◽  
Disappointment Aversion ◽  
Rank Dependent Utility ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Budgetary Choice

We develop a nonparametric method, called Generalized Restriction of Infinite Domains (GRID), for testing the consistency of budgetary choice data with models of choice under risk and under uncertainty. Our test can allow for risk-loving and elation-seeking attitudes, or it can require risk aversion. It can also be used to calculate, via Afriat’s efficiency index, the magnitude of violations from a particular model. We evaluate the performance of various models under risk (expected utility, disappointment aversion, rank-dependent utility, and stochastically monotone utility) using data collected from several recent portfolio choice experiments. (JEL C14, D11, D12, D81)

scholarly journals INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE OF ECONOMICS AND PHILOSOPHY ON AMBIGUITY AVERSION

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Bonanno ◽  
Martin van Hees ◽  
Christian List ◽  
Bertil Tungodden
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
Ambiguity Aversion ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Von Neumann ◽  
Descriptive Theory ◽  
Sure Thing Principle ◽  
New Literature ◽  
Theoretical Side

The paradigm for modelling decision-making under uncertainty has undoubtedly been the theory of Expected Utility, which was first developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944) and later extended by Savage (1954) to the case of subjective uncertainty. The inadequacy of the theory of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) as a descriptive theory was soon pointed out in experiments, most famously by Allais (1953) and Ellsberg (1961). The observed departures from SEU noticed by Allais and Ellsberg became known as “paradoxes”. The Ellsberg paradox gave rise, several years later, to a new literature on decision-making under ambiguity. The theoretical side of this literature was pioneered by Schmeidler (1989). This literature views the departures from SEU in situations similar to those discussed by Ellsberg as rational responses to ambiguity. The rationality is “recovered” by relaxing Savage's Sure-Thing principle and adding an ambiguity-aversion postulate. Thus the ambiguity-aversion literature takes a normative point of view and does consider Ellsberg-type choices as behavioural “anomalies”.

scholarly journals DISAPPOINTMENT AVERSION PREMIUM PRINCIPLE

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 679-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka Chun Cheung ◽  
Wing Fung Chong ◽  
Robert Elliott ◽  
Sheung Chi Phillip Yam
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Expected Utility ◽  
Translation Invariance ◽  
Regulatory Requirement ◽  
Behavioral Economic ◽  
Disappointment Aversion ◽  
Explicit Representations ◽  
Behavioral Economic Theory

AbstractIn recent years, the determination of premium principle under various non-expected utility frameworks has become popular, such as the pioneer works by Tsanakas and Desli (2003) and Kaluszka and Krzeszowiec (2012). We here revisit the problem under another prevalent behavioral economic theory, namely the Disappointment Aversion (DA) Theory proposed by Gul (1991). In this article, we define and study the properties of theDA premium principle, which builds on the equivalent utility premium principle. We derive various properties of this premium principle, such as non-negative and no unjustified risk loading, translation invariance, monotonicity, convexity, positive (non-)homogeneity, independent (non-)additivity, comonotonic (non-)additivity and monotonicity with respect to the extent of disappointment. A generalized Arrow–Pratt approximation is also established. Explicit representations of the premium principle are obtained for linear and exponential utilities, and they reveal that the premium principle proposed echoes the capital reserve regulatory requirement in practice.

scholarly journals ELLSBERG’S PARADOX AND THE VALUE OF CHANCES

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Marginal Utility ◽  
Bayesian Decision Theory ◽  
Ellsberg Paradox ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Uncertainty Aversion ◽  
Von Neumann ◽  
Diminishing Marginal Utility ◽  
Ellsberg’S Paradox

Abstract:What value should we put on our chances of obtaining a good? This paper argues that, contrary to the widely accepted theory of von Neumann and Morgenstern, the value of a chance of some good G may be a non-linear function of the value of G. In particular, chances may have diminishing marginal utility, a property that is termed chance uncertainty aversion. The hypothesis that agents are averse to uncertainy about chances explains a pattern of preferences often observed in the Ellsberg paradox. While these preferences have typically been taken to refute Bayesian decision theory, it is shown that chance risk aversion is perfectly compatible with it.

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